Listen to The Shins Debut “The Fear” on A Prairie Home Companion

After announcing their fifth studio album, Heartworms, last week, The Shins performed a new song titled “The Fear” on a live broadcast of Chris Thile’s A Prairie Home Companion this weekend. “The Fear” sounds like a quintessential Shins song in the best way, featuring the kind of lilting, nostalgia-ridden melody that James Mercer has specialized in since Oh, Inverted World came out in 2001. The acoustic arrangement suits the tune nicely, and similar re-workings of other Shins songs from the broadcast, including “Name For You,” another recently-released Heartworms track, along with “Gone For Good” and “Saint Simon,” both off of Chutes Too Narrow, display the group’s music in a slightly new light. Thile also tells a quick story about his first time seeing The Shins and going to buy Chutes Too Narrow.